Meanings
- Undergoing psychological therapy or analysis.
French: Did that background growing up in the American West, your time serving as a judge in the West, did that inform your approach to administrative law and your approach to these labyrinth of laws? / Gorsuch: David, I don’t know. I can’t put myself on the couch. I don’t know.
2024 August 4, David French, “‘I Just Have Some Questions’: An Interview With Justice Gorsuch”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 22 Aug 2024
Origin
From the trope of a mental health patient lying down on a couch before a therapist or psychologist.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
on the couch. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/on%20the%20couch
“on the couch.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/on%20the%20couch. Accessed November 5, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “on the couch,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/on%20the%20couch.
Source: on the couch on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.